“To represent powerful women on the field.” Ayesha Hossain, student at George Webster school, explains her prize-winning poster. Ayesha’s artwork honours all women who served in military conflicts—but particularly nursing sisters of the Great War—with a special nod to one who died on active service. The text to the right […]
Toronto schools
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For some years, this “Greetings from Humberside” poster hung over the fireplace of a steak house in Sydney, Nova Scotia. Attractive, colourful, and no doubt at times a conversation piece, it was a long way from home. Humberside Collegiate Institute is about 1,500 kilometres (950 miles) from Sydney. What was […]
We start 2015 with three “vanished” schools. The bricks and mortar of Grand Avenue, Humber Bay, and Silverthorn schools have gone, but their war memorials survive to remind us of students who volunteered for king and country. A fourth school, Fairbank Memorial, rounds out our group. In April 2014, an […]
The year 2014 began with the promise of much remembering. One hundred years since the outbreak of the Great War; 70 years since D-day in the Second World War. Princess Anne would re-dedicate Canada’s national war memorial in Ottawa, 75 years after her grandfather, King George VI, first unveiled it […]
Wellesley Public School, closed in 1956, lingers in the memory of former students, who have responded to our blog post (Vanished School and Vanished Times-March 17, 2013). When the students moved to Church Street School, Wellesley’s bell went with them. Its ringing days long past, the bell sits in a […]
As students and teachers settle into their classes for another year, our project volunteers are celebrating a back-to-school accomplishment—we now have a full 100 schools in For King and Country database! Just added are war memorials and school histories from: The Bishop Strachan School; Davisville Public School; Eastern High School […]
Leslieville (Leslie Street) school will celebrate 150 years on April 26. The school’s first principal was Alexander Muir, composer of “The Maple Leaf Forever.” The school’s war memorials (485 names) have been indexed and a photo is on our website. Congratulations to this east-of-the-Don school and to a neighbourhood packed […]
How did schools collect the names for their war memorials? Danforth Tech, with 2,235 volunteers— more than any other school in the Commonwealth—shows us. A War Memorial Committee sent forms like John D. Marr’s (pictured here) asking former students how their names should appear. This form, not dated, was probably […]
A great uncle’s school certificate sparked a search for one of Toronto’s “vanished” halls of learning. Opened in 1874, Wellesley Public School sat like a fancy wedding cake on the north east corner of Bay and Wellesley Streets in downtown Toronto. The “most handsome and best-furnished school building in Toronto” […]
This plaque hangs in Rose Avenue School, 675 Ontario Street, (south of Bloor Street East, between Parliament and Sherbourne Streets) in Toronto’s St. James Town. Chilton Street does not appear on current maps of Toronto. There is a Chilton Road in East York, but it is several kilometres northeast of […]